/* $Id: RuleSet.java 467222 2006-10-24 03:17:11Z markt $
 *
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.apache.tomcat.util.digester;

/**
 * <p>
 * Public interface defining a shorthand means of configuring a complete set of
 * related <code>Rule</code> definitions, possibly associated with a
 * particular namespace URI, in one operation. To use an instance of a class
 * that imlements this interface:
 * </p>
 * <ul>
 * <li>Create a concrete implementation of this interface.</li>
 * <li>Optionally, you can configure a <code>RuleSet</code> to be relevant
 * only for a particular namespace URI by configuring the value to be returned
 * by <code>getNamespaceURI()</code>.</li>
 * <li>As you are configuring your Digester instance, call
 * <code>digester.addRuleSet()</code> and pass the RuleSet instance.</li>
 * <li>Digester will call the <code>addRuleInstances()</code> method of your
 * RuleSet to configure the necessary rules.</li>
 * </ul>
 */

public interface RuleSet {

	// ------------------------------------------------------------- Properties

	/**
	 * Return the namespace URI that will be applied to all Rule instances
	 * created from this RuleSet.
	 */
	public String getNamespaceURI();

	// --------------------------------------------------------- Public Methods

	/**
	 * Add the set of Rule instances defined in this RuleSet to the specified
	 * <code>Digester</code> instance, associating them with our namespace URI
	 * (if any). This method should only be called by a Digester instance.
	 * 
	 * @param digester
	 *            Digester instance to which the new Rule instances should be
	 *            added.
	 */
	public void addRuleInstances(Digester digester);

}
